Tuning In: Mosquitoes disrupt Friday Night Football Frenzy

Because of the threat of eastern equine encephalitis and the West Nile virus, the Friday Night Football Frenzy on Charter TV 3 is a little less frenzied this fall.

Some Friday night high school football games have been switched to Friday or Saturday afternoons to avoid the possibility of contracting either disease transmitted by mosquitoes.

TV 3 has more time to gather highlights from the Friday afternoon games for the show, but Andy Lacombe, who co-hosts the program with Kevin Shea, is still disappointed in the reduction of Friday night games.

“We get kind of a rush preparing for Friday nights,” Lacombe said. “It’s our big night of the week, so initially you’re disappointed, but I can also understand why school districts have to make that decision. You can’t really fault people for putting safety first.”

With fewer Friday night games to film, TV 3 has filled the gap by attending more Friday afternoon contests at schools it wouldn’t normally visit, including those in Connecticut.

Last Friday, Lacombe filmed 4 p.m. games at Groton-Dunstable and Lawrence Academy, then returned to Worcester to film the first half of the Quaboag-Worcester Tech 7 p.m. game before he headed back to the station to edit the highlights.

Normally, he would have filmed parts of two 7 p.m. games and not arrived at the station until 9:30 or 9:45, less than an hour before the 10:25 p.m. live start of the Frenzy.

“It has been a little less hectic in the final half hour before the show,” Lacombe said. “That’s the good news, but the bad news is we don’t get to see as many of the teams on Friday nights.”

Most years, the Frenzy gathers highlights from 18 or 19 high school games. Some Fridays this fall, that number dropped to 12 to 14. Today, Lacombe is scheduled to film Southbridge at Grafton at 4:30 p.m., then Holy Name at Milford at 7, while Shea will go to Assabet at West Boylston at 4 before visiting two 7 p.m. games, North at Quabbin and St. Peter-Marian at Wachusett.

This is the 10th year of the Frenzy on TV 3. Last year, the show expanded from 30 to 35 minutes to fit in more highlights.

With some key games moving to Saturdays, TV 3 has begun filming a couple of Saturday games to collect highlights for the Monday sportscasts and Frenzy Extra at 8:30 p.m. Wednesdays. Last Saturday, TV 3 filmed Doherty’s win over Holy Name and Shrewsbury’s upset of St. John’s.

TV 3’s 10 p.m. newscast devotes five to six minutes to sports, far more than the Boston television stations do at 10 or 11.

“There’s such a huge interest and demand,” Lacombe said, “for local sports that you can only see here or read about in the Telegram. You can watch Red Sox and Celtics highlights on four Boston stations or ESPN or Comcast and all the other networks, but you can only see the St. John’s-Shrewsbury game highlights here.”

At 7 p.m. tomorrow, Lacombe will provide play-by-play of the Nipmuc at Northbridge game. Former WPI coach Ed Zaloom will handle the color.

Zaloom has served as analyst alongside Lacombe and Shea this fall.

“He’s been fantastic to work with,” Lacombe said.

Lacombe, 35, supervises the news and sports for TV 3, but most people know him as a sports anchor and reporter.

“I don’t mind being known as a sports reporter,” Lacombe said. “That’s why I got into the business.”

Lacombe said he believes his alma mater of Auburn High has the best team in Central Mass. this year even though he has voted for Nashoba Regional each week in the T&G media poll.

“I just think,” Lacombe said, “a game between those two teams, which wouldn’t happen under the current system, would be the game of the year. It’s tough for me to go away from Auburn because that’s where I grew up.”

Lacombe can’t wait for the full schedule of Friday night games to return after the first hard frost, which could come as soon as this weekend.

“We gear up for it every week, and we want to see as many teams as we possibly can,” Lacombe said. “So fewer games is a little bit of a downer.”